Our workshop is called Small World – Global Classrooms: Exploring the Potential and Advantages of Fully Online Global Learning Communities and essentially details the projects and research that we have been involved in over the last seven years or so as well as looking into the future. It’s divided into four parts:

For example, what are the educational expectations of a 18 year-old who has instant messaging friends all over the world, has their own MySpace page and blog and for whom Google and Wikipedia are the first authorities on anything in the world? The Academe has long tried to educate students about the values of refereed publications and reputable sources, but perhaps it is academia that is out of date. What is more influential in reality – an obscure journal with a expert readership in the hundreds, or Google with a user-base of millions?